Eddie Stobart Ltd v Graham [2025] EAT 14
Why the case matters
In discrimination claims tribunals may make awards for injury to feelings to successful claimants. There are clear guidelines for the level compensation which can be awarded (Vento bands) depending on various factors, but it should be compensatory and just to both parties, rather than punishing the wrongdoer. Here, the EAT decided that the ET's award was too high, given the facts of the case.
The facts
The Claimant brought a grievance in connection with redundancy consultation at the start of her maternity leave. She had emailed her employer twice but had no response. She was then made redundant. Although the Claimant didn’t appeal the decision she raised her unanswered grievance with her employer's Head of HR, who said she would investigate. It later became apparent that the Claimant's emails had been blocked by her employer's IT systems and therefore were not received.
The Claimant claimed before the employment tribunal that she had been automatically unfairly dismissed on the basis that there was a role which constituted a suitable vacancy that should have been given to her. This claim was dismissed by the tribunal as it agreed with her employer that the vacancies were not suitable for her. However, the tribunal did uphold her complaints of pregnancy/maternity discrimination and detrimental treatment, because her employer had failed to take adequate steps to deal with her grievance. Although it accepted that the two grievance emails had been blocked by the company's firewall, the head of HR and the business partner had been informed that she had lodged a grievance and had made enquiries. However, they did not follow up in writing with the Claimant or ask for further details about the grievance during her redundancy consultation process. Because the Claimant's absence on maternity leave materially influenced her employer’s approach to the grievance and the tribunal accepted that she was understandably upset by the manner in which her grievance was dealt with, it awarded her £10,000 for injury feelings (being at the lower end of the middle Vento band).
The company appealed to the EAT, arguing that the award of £10,000 was so excessive as to be perverse and that the Claimant had provided little evidence that her feelings had been injured.
The decision
The EAT allowed the appeal. It thought that the level of the award was manifestly excessive for an act of pregnancy/maternity discrimination claim that consisted of the employer failing to take adequate steps to deal with her grievance and substituted the award with a significantly lower injury to feelings award of £2,000 plus interest, which is towards the lower end of the bottom Vento band.
The EAT observed that the evidence of injury before the tribunal was limited and the tribunal’s criticism of the employer was limited to some missed opportunities to ask the claimant about the content of her grievance (which concerned the employer’s failure to offer her an alternative role prior to being made redundant) and to double-check with her why it had not been received.
The EAT commented that in such cases the parties can greatly assist the tribunal by giving it more direct evidence, the burden being on the claimant to show that their feelings have been injured and to what extent. Such evidence might include a claimant's description of the injury, the duration of the consequences, effect on past, current and future work and the effect on personal life or quality of life.
Where such evidence is lacking, the EAT also gave guidance on where it can be inferred by considering the manner of discrimination; where discrimination is overt, occurring in front of others or causes isolation, is more likely to cause distress.
Comment
In this case the EAT did not think that there were indications of humiliation by way of ridicule or disempowerment, to draw an inference of greater injury to feelings. The EAT did comment that it would have considered a lower sum but was prepared to infer some additional injury arising from the fact that the Claimant was following up her grievance at a time when she should have been enjoying her maternity leave. The guidance the EAT provided is likely to prove useful, in considering the types of factors to take into account, when calculating the possible levels of an injury to feelings award.
